Fiona’s Reviews > Down and Out in Paris and London > Status Update

From about page 54 to 118 Orwell relates his experiences working as a Plongeur (dishwasher) in Paris first at Hôtel X and then at Auberge de Jehan Cottard.

which he has licked a hundred times that morning. When he is satisfied, he takes a cloth and wipes his fingerprints from the dish and hands it to the waiter. And the waiter, of course, dips his fingers into the gravy-his nasty, greasy fingers which he is for ever running through his brilliantined hair. Whenever one pays more than, say ten francs for a dish of meat in Paris one may be certain that it has been fingered

When a steak, for instance, is brought up for the head cook's inspection, he does not handle it with a fork. He picks it up in his fingers and slaps it down, runs his thumb round the dish and licks it to taste the gravy, runs it round and licks it again, then steps back and contemplates the piece of meat like an artist judging a picture, then presses it lovingly into place with his fat, pink fingers, every one of

In the kitchen the dirt was worse. It is not a figure of speech, it is a mere statement of fact to say that a French cook, will spit in the soup-that is, if he is not going to drink it himself. He is an artist, but his art is not cleanliness. To a certain extent he is even dirty because he is an artist, for food, to look smart, needs dirty treatment